What's next? Grits?

My son is...decidedly odd.  He swears up, down, and sideways that he loves almost everything "apple" except apples themselves: juice, cider, apple sauce, etc.  Just...not apples.  He loves oranges and orange juice.  Hell, the kid's liked salsa since he was a baby!  

About a year ago, I was at a Southern cookin' restaurant that had collard greens on the menu.*  Theirs were lightly spiced, and included pulled pork in with the greens.  And yes, it was definitely pulled pork, not bacon--it's a specific texture.  And I had some, and the imp decided he wanted a taste...and promptly ate about half my greens.  

Since then, I've been making a mess of collard greens** and freezing individual portions for him for when we're doing green beans...which he hates.  

But I'd been making them up fresh every time we ran out, which takes forever.  However, it's worth it, because between that and the salsa, the kid actually eats at least some veggies without fussing.  Nay, eagerly.  

Well.  Anyhow.  

I was really tired tonight.  We had smoked pork chops (taste like ham steak, really), the ones who can eat wheat had biscuits, and I opened up a can of black-eyed peas and peppers. I puttered around, trying to figure out what else sounded good, and I realized I wanted some greens. I didn't have any fresh or frozen on hand.  I do, however, have some in the pantry, in cans.  Mustard greens, as it so happens, which are some of my favorite (and which are hard to find without soy protein/soy broth, in this area, which I can't have).  So I took a skillet and heated it up, drained the greens, put about half a teaspoon of bacon grease in the bottom of the skillet, dumped the greens in, tasted them...

And damn, that was nasty.  They didn't salt the damn mustard greens at all when they canned them.  I salted the hell out of them, tasted them again, then added a healthy dash of smoked paprika (don't ask how much, because I have no idea), some onion powder, more salt, and a little bit of ranch dressing mix.  

The imp had a little bit of everything.  The pixie refused the greens, but had peas (despite them being a little spicy), pork chop, and three biscuits.  

And then, the imp went back for seconds on the canned greens.  "Momma, those were good."  

One of these days, I'm gonna try him on cheesy grits, I swear it.  He may actually like them. 

*Restaurant is Red, Hot, & Blue.  They serve pretty decent barbecue, awesome cornbread, and damn good collard greens.  

**My collard greens are easy, just time consuming, because collards are tough if you don't cook 'em long enough.  I'll share the recipe soon.